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Books
May 25, 2019 20:27:45 GMT
Post by Blunashun on May 25, 2019 20:27:45 GMT
Not sure if we already had a thread for this.
I'm currently reading 'Straw Men.' It's about the Mob in Las Vegas. Finished a book about the Kansas City Mafia before that. Good segue. Both the Milwaukee & KC Mobs were instrumental in the demise of Mob control over Vegas. They were monitored in their home towns by the FBI & a lot was picked up on how the skim worked & who actually owned what. They hid their interests behind front men. Fascinating subject matter. But...
The author is a former FBI agent & it's just painful reading his remembrances. Without going into it too much detail, in the last few pages he's gotten the date of the McClellan Committee wrong, the tenure of Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General wrong, had the reason for the McClellan Committee attributed to JFK having an affair with Sam Giancana's girlfriend (Judith Campbell Exner), Jimmy Hoffa as Ron Carey's immediate successor (Carey was actually Teamsters president in the 1990's. I think the author confused Carey with Dan Tobin. What happened to Dave Beck?), & Roy Williams as Jimmy's Hoffa's immediate successor. What happened to Frank Fitzsimmons?
If this guy was called to present the government's case in trials, the DA's office must have trained him like a circus monkey to prevent defense attorneys from tearing their cases apart. It's really a sad commentary on the state of law enforcement in this country that clowns like him not only coast through our system & collect pensions (while we rely on them for protection), but actually excel compared to their contemporaries. What does that say about them?
I give this book one snap.
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Books
Jul 11, 2019 2:30:07 GMT
Post by Blunashun on Jul 11, 2019 2:30:07 GMT
Reading about the Kray twins in Britain now. What's the most astonishing part of their story is that they were homosexual gangsters in a walk of life that normally is very macho & would kill or be killed based on making such an accusation. Then they had the dirt on enough homosexual British politicians as to render themselves virtually impervious to prosecution. Is that why we rebelled?  |
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Jul 27, 2019 21:31:03 GMT
Post by Blunashun on Jul 27, 2019 21:31:03 GMT
Reading about a Chicago based counterfeiter now. It really captures your imagination. Being able to print your own money. He learned the craft from an old school gangster. Then the guy disappeared (probably killed) & this kid had to finish his education by himself. He incorporated computers. Something his mentor knew nothing about. This guy passed millions of dollars worth of counterfeit money. He grew up in the projects of Chicago & made millions of dollars making funny money. He made contacts with people he had grown up with. One a Russian. He had a working relationship with American Triads. The kid avoided the Chicago Outfit because they get proprietary about "associates." Once they have you, they own you.
He did a stint in prison for breaking & entering. A friend set him up (not intentionally) by having him break into the home of this guy's girlfriend's father. He was a jeweler working from home. Small time stuff. But he told the counterfeiter this jeweler was going out of business & wanted to cash in on insurance money. Nope. His girlfriend's father hated him & the counterfeiter's buddy wanted to get even. Even though the counterfeiter refused to roll over on his buddy, his buddy testified that HE was the mastermind of the break-in & the counterfeiter did three years because of that.
Before that he had spent some time in Texas rolling drug dealers. I can't help liking him.
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Aug 3, 2019 18:27:40 GMT
Post by Blunashun on Aug 3, 2019 18:27:40 GMT
Reading about a bigshot Irish gangster named 'Gilligan.' Yes, it took a while for me to get past that too. He must have been really big in the drug smuggling game though. I'm at the part where he's robbing warehouses. Before he got big into drugs.
Astonishing how lenient former British colonies (we broke away by force) are in sentencing. Like you get a year for burglary. Time off for good behavior too. Why NOT a life of crime? That book about the Krays had an unusual chapter where Ron Kray was certified insane & his brother broke him out of a mental institution. Some loophole in British law said if you could prove you could function on the outside without constant medical supervision it meant you could petition the court to have the stigma (& so the sentence) vacated. Reggie hid Ron until Ron could apply for his freedom. It worked. At one point Gilligan was facing two separate charges of burglary & got a year. A Canadian Mafiosi (Vito Rizzuto) was extradited to the United States to stand trial for a triple homicide in New York. Part of the agreement for extradition is we wouldn't subject poor Vito to the harshness of American law. He got several years, was released, returned to Montreal, & waged an unholy gang war against those who had murdered his family & friends, & taken over his rackets. Serves the Canadians right.
I sometimes think our sentences are savage. Then I see what happens when notorious felons are treated with kid gloves & get sissy sentences.
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Books
Sept 10, 2019 22:07:30 GMT
Post by Blunashun on Sept 10, 2019 22:07:30 GMT
Reading 'The General,' about Martin Cahill now. He was supposedly the last sanctioned hit of the IRA. Apparently the IRA operated a lot like the Mafia & narco-guerrillas in places like Colombia. They want their share. Cahill just pulled off a massive jewelry heist & the IRA called him in for a meeting to get their cut. He told them to bug off. Steal your own gold. Then some of the haul disappeared & he crucified a member of his gang. Literally nailed him to the floor. He became convinced the guy was telling the truth & had nothing to do with the missing gold & took him to the hospital. Oops! Sorry...
He also did things like planting a car bomb in a forensic scientist's car & the poor guy lost a foot. The scientist had been a thorn in Cahill's side. He dug up the police force's golf course too.
Next is a book on the IRA.
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jrgreene6
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Post by jrgreene6 on Sept 13, 2019 4:29:24 GMT
Currently perusing the Paul McCartney - The Life biography by Philip Norman (who also penned the same for John Lennon and the Stones).
Around 125 pages in and still very early in his / the Beatles career in Liverpool. Pretty good thus far.
Also received Geddy Lee’s Big Old Book of Bass for Christmas last year. HUGE tome with TONS of photos. Only around 75 pages into it.
Gonna jump back into it after I finish McCartney (both are 400 + pages, with Macca being more print than photos).
GO DODGERS!!!
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Sept 14, 2019 21:09:02 GMT
Post by Blunashun on Sept 14, 2019 21:09:02 GMT
Currently perusing the Paul McCartney - The Life biography by Philip Norman (who also penned the same for John Lennon and the Stones). Around 125 pages in and still very early in his / the Beatles career in Liverpool. Pretty good thus far. Also received Geddy Lee’s Big Old Book of Bass for Christmas last year. HUGE tome with TONS of photos. Only around 75 pages into it. Gonna jump back into it after I finish McCartney (both are 400 + pages, with Macca being more print than photos). GO DODGERS!!! Sounds really good. Let me know about the McCartney book. The cops are harassing Cahill & his gang now. Whenever a key member goes anywhere he has a police escort. They're having a discussion in a restaurant or pub & the cops interject. Look up in a tree & a couple cops are looking back down at you. What set it off was Cahill breaking into the DA's office & making off with a bunch of their files. He punctuated that triumph by taking a dump on the floor. To him it was all a big game. That was just more than the police could take though. He robbed an armory. It wasn't enough to outwit the police (how hard is that?). He had to rub their noses in it too. |
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Oct 2, 2019 4:19:59 GMT
Post by Blunashun on Oct 2, 2019 4:19:59 GMT
The IRA book is good so far. It's still the early chapters & so the author is covering the reasons for the IRA existing & how the British botched the situation so badly. It wasn't helped by the Irish insistence on not participating in parliamentary politics. It would be nice to get an explanation of exactly what the Irish wanted it not representative government. Fulgencio Batista? A military strongman? Or was it just because it was a British thing & the Irish refused to accept anything British?
So the idea (one at least) for colonizing Northern Ireland with British & Scottish Protestants was fear of a foreign power using Ireland as a backdoor to invade Britain. They very nearly touch in the north. Okay. But then there was the greed factor. The British have always been openly imperialistic. FDR had to tell Churchill he wasn't going to help him mend his empire after WWII. Once the Protestants got there, they got a higher ranking social status than the native Irish. This began to flip a bit (they used what can best be described as a sharecropper system, from what can be gleaned in this book) & the Irish were willing to pay higher rents because they had become used to living on less. This enraged & frightened the Protestant transplants & they began killing Catholics. Naturally the Irish fought back & so rival organizations were formed for protection & aggression. The British eventually sent troops in. They stood idly by & watched as a Catholic neighborhood was torched.
Before that (1790's) an Irish leader went to France to seek their help. This was towards the end of the French Revolution. Britain's fear of a foreign power invading through Ireland almost came to fruition as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The British created this situation by their fear of the same. They had pushed the Irish towards their Catholic brethren in France.
I always talk to British people online & they really are haughty. "I don't understand prejudice. I'm British." That gets me to licking my lips. Oh, you really stepped into that one buddy. Think you're better than Americans when you ate up half of Africa, all of India, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, Burma, the Middle-East, etc? They had the largest empire in human history. Gandhi is world renown for protesting British imperialism. They seem to glory in their subservient status to a crumbling monarchy too. Ships are prefaced with 'HMS.' Her Majesty's Ship. They don't just have an air force. They have a ROYAL Air Force.
What we set up here is far from perfect. But I'm glad I'm the descendent of a rogue who flipped the British the bird & struck out on his or her own.
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Post by Blunashun on Oct 3, 2019 1:25:14 GMT
Gerry Adams (the center of this IRA story) saw that the civilians of Belfast were clinging to this ideal notion that they weren't a part of this. No matter how many injustices & insults were hurled upon them, they just wanted to go about their business & figured it was between the IRA, British troops & Protestant vigilantes. Once the IRA rode to the rescue it was their problem. Not ours'.
He withheld support during some key riots to radicalize the local population. This isn't the IRA's problem. It's OUR problem. You included. We weren't even there & the British troops looted & burned your homes. It worked.
Ruthless but brilliant. Sometimes you have to slap people to wake them up.
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